Excellent review Lawrence. The balance of topics covered is perfect for SPCR. I especially appreciate the value analysis that I've seen on these reviews here, including the CPU+mobo price, price per performance, etc. (and nice touch having one rating corrected for GPU). This is something lacking in reviews at big name sites. That along with the power usage are the bread and butter of SPCR and done well here. And you did just the right amount of performance testing and covered the basics (that itself takes quite a bit of time I'm sure). If I want to be buried in benchmark charts I can go to some other big name review site.

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It doesn't sound like a PC many enthusiasts would build for themselves but rather for a friend or family member with general needs and a smaller budget.

This hits the nail on the head. I would love to build an HTPC for myself or a system for my parents, sister, etc. using one of these CPUs. No video card needed! Save money for SSD And I could see these being a big hit with OEMs. Myself - I will be happy with my Phenom II X4 965 and high end video card for quite a while yet (with big Scythe Mugen 2 heatsink and lots of slow spinning Nexus and Fractal Design fans!).

What about video quality. I've read a couple reviews from different sites but no one has yet to see how well it actually renders video. I remember when some of the earlier ATI cards came out they were horrible. Then after a couple driver updates they really began to shine. nVidia has always been behind ATI in the overall quality of the video on the TV (so I remember anyway).

Regarding the 65W Trinity parts -- apparently in short supply, but AMD reps say they will try to get them for us... hopefully sooner than later.

Woot! Would love to see CPU loading along with the Pd tables.

hedly: Ganesh's HTPC perspective at Anandtech sums up: "Our overall conclusion is that discrete GPUs for HTPC use are only necessary if one has plans to upgrade to 4K in the near term, or the user is set upon using madVR for 1080i60 content. Otherwise, the Trinity platform has everything that a mainstream HTPC user would ever need."

There are still some +/- issues. Some may be resolved through BIOS updates, some might not, some might not matter to you.

Thank you for the KG link comparing the chip against a similarly priced i3 and a high end discrete card. On some other forums there's a good # of people who keep saying that the A10 is not suitable for budget gaming with a discrete card and the only value is the GPU in it. But that KG review showed higher framerates for the A10 than the i3 in all tests which is a great victory. All the tests were over 60fps and while it was not a very complete gaming suite it did show that the A10 is a capable CPU in games and won't be beat by a cheap Pentium when paired with a discrete video card. Your review was very good as well and better than the AT review. Thanks.

I don't disagree with the review overall. Ie these APU's have a place for some users needs (ie GPU cost savings)Have to point out one thing, let's not use itunes as a benchmark for audio encoding..this lame software is not optimal for multi threaded processors.

If anyone sees a review of using the A85X in RAID 5 mode, please either PM me the link, or post a link. I'm thinking of using one for a simple NAS machine, but can't find ANY review of this function. And yes, I know it'll be a bit slower than a "real" RAID 5 controller.

Nice review, although I would disagree with one small part. I don't feel you could compare the graphics of these chips to a sub $50 discrete cards- rather I think that is on the low side. From what I have read you would have to spend approximately $75 or perhaps a little more. I know that is a small point, but I think the impression is otherwise given that any inexpensive hd 6450 card would offer the same quality and that does not appear to be the case. I think the price you gave for the hd 6570 is not widely realistic.

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